The Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season is an Eco-friendly Crossover/SUV Touring All-Season tire, which brings a lot of performance features to the table. Let’s see if this tire is made for you!
Table of Contents
Available Tire Sizes
Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season comes in 16 to 20 inches rims, having following specs.
- Speed ratings: H and V. (Learn all about speed ratings here: https://tiredriver.com/speed-rating-on-tires/)
- Load ratings: SL and XL.
- Weight range: 26 to 40 lbs.
- Tread depth: 9 to 12/32″.
- UTQG: 600 A A.
- Treadwear warranty: 65k miles.
Key Takeaway
The Pirelli Verde AS is a great tire in terms of:
- Straight-Line Grip: Thanks to its continuous central rib and intricate tread design.
- Lateral Grip: Where it offers enhanced road connectivity from its shoulders.
- Noise Comfort: Minimal impact noise and vibration, benefiting from compact shoulders and sound-absorbing foam.
- Tread Life: Above-average longevity with relatively tougher rubber compound composition.
However, the tire needs improvement in:
- Steering Response: Delayed wheel turning and sluggish steering due to softer internal construction.
- Wet Performance: Limited wet grip and hydroplaning resistance.
- Winter Performance: Inadequate grip on icy and snowy surfaces, lacking specific snow features.
Construction Features
The Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season comes with a asymmetric tread pattern.
It features a very complicated design with it’s 5 block columns (called ribs in the tire world).
I mean one can easily see the asymmetric design here, though the outer two (shoulder) ribs are still not so different form each other.
I mean they both form lateral voids, and have “blockers” in front of them, along with similar linear siping pattern.
Though, on one side, the lateral voids get blocked by ridges placements in between, joining up all lugs longitudinally.
While on the opposite side, the shoulder blocks exhibit continuous, “featureless rib” that runs adjacent to the shoulder blocks, effectively sealing the lateral channels.
This featureless rib I talked about is also seen on two (out of three) central ribs (which together form 4 circumferential grooves).
But besides this, they are all pretty same, I mean in terms of biters they have, and similar linear siping.
Internally, the tire comes with 2 ply polyester casing, with twin wide steel belts, and dual nylon cap plies. And yes, you also get a polyamide layer on the very top/just beneath the rubber, dedicated to bumps absorption and overall ride comfort.
Find all the tires compared with Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season.
Pavement Performance Analysis
When assessing the performance of tires on pavements, streets, and highways, a tire’s ability to maintain a solid connection with the ground is paramount.
And its not a problem with our boy here. Let’s check out how it performed in each section.
Straight Line Grip
This “linear” grip is vital for maintaining a straight-line trajectory, and is largely influenced by the tire’s central tread area.
And yes, one more thing, it’s gauged by the tire’s acceleration and braking capabilities.
In this context, the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season stands out with its distinctive design, featuring three pronounced biting ribs, as detailed in the tread design overview earlier.
The tire ensures superior road contact through a wide, continuous central rib, where the lateral grooves don’t cut through all the way. This design guarantees “unbroken” road contact, translating to exceptional grip.
Moreover, the slanted cuts, notches, and chamfered edges, all contribute further to this grip, where they provide the needed bite.
Lateral Grip
When it comes to lateral grip, the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season again excels without any complaints.
This tire offering an asymmetric design, although comes with a slightly varying shoulders on each side, both still aim for enhanced road connectivity.
Here on both sides, shoulder lugs are pretty packed up, (as explained in it’s construction section), and while this provides the needed contact patch, the lateral voids (between the blocks), act as in-groove notches, aiding the lateral traction further.
But wait, why shoulders are important here?
Well this is because as the tire corners, the weight on it shifts towards the tread edges (due to centripetal force).
So overall you get pretty decent lateral traction values. Though the tire still can’t able to provide just as great handling.
And this is where the tire’s steering characteristics come into play.
Steering Response
In dry conditions, the steering performance of the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season is just barely passable and not outstanding in any way.
This is because, there’s a noticeable delay when you’re turning the wheels, meaning, it doesn’t provide the quick enough response, as seen in some other all-season tires.
So how come?
Well, the reason behind this lies in the tire’s internal construction, which is relatively soft, as it incorporates a noise-canceling system that includes a cushioning layer above nylon cap plies.
And this causes the lugs to flex more, against the road, resulting in a disrupted balance of under/oversteering.
(This is because for one, softer construction is more bendable, and two, it also increases the overall weight of the tire, so each lug has more weight pressure on it, pushing each down with greater friction, forcing them to flex).
This becomes especially apparent during precise cornering or when making quick adjustments, as the steering feels sluggish and requires more movement before accurately responding to the driver’s input.
Tread Life
When evaluating tread life, it’s important to consider two key factors:
Firstly, the rate at which the tire’s rubber deteriorates or its susceptibility to rapid wear. And secondly, how long it will take for the tire to wear down to 2/32″, which is the legal limit in the United States and the point at which you should replace your tires.
(You can test your tires with a penny, by the way, if you’re wondering).
Now, in the case of the Pirelli Scorpion Verde, you get a pretty great (above-average) overall tread longevity.
The tire comes with a tougher rubber compound and reinforced foundations beneath all its lugs. And this design choice results in substantial resistance to wear.
Furthermore, with a generous tread depth of 12/32″, the tire ensures a prolonged lifespan before reaching the legal limit as well.
Wet Performance
When evaluating the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season’s wet performance, I focused on two key factors: overall wet grip and resistance to aquaplaning.
And as you’d see below, unfortunately, the tire falls short in both aspects.
Wet traction and Handling
For wet grip and handling, the tire’s performance lags significantly behind its counterparts. And to explain, we have to understand two things, sipes and grooves.
While the tire’s grooves effectively channel most of the water away, sipes play a crucial role in handling the remaining water particles.
These are nothing more than mere slits on the tread, which open up when water is pushed between the tread and the road, allowing moisture to get in (which is later sprayed out).
Now, the problem here with Pirelli is it’s less effective siping, reducing its overall wet traction.
Now, sure the tire comes with numerous small slits, the problem is that these sipes have a laterally oriented and linear structures. And with that, they are basically susceptible to stiffen up, especially during sharp cornering.
Furthermore, the tire’s stiffer composition, which contains less silica, contributes to those sipes’ rigidity, further reducing their water absorbing abilities.
Hydroplaning Resistance
Hydroplaning is a phenomenon where a tire loses all contact with the road surface due to the presence of water.
Essentially, it’s like the tire is floating (or hydroplaning) on water.
And the ability to “resist” this is largely determined by its grooves, as they take out most of the water from the tire’s path.
Now the Scorpion Verde All Season although offers great straight float speeds, courtesy of it’s 4 wide circumferential channels, it lacks in curved aqua testing.
This curved aqua test actually measures how well the tire removes water laterally, and the Pirelli here, with pretty packed up ribs, isn’t able to offer that effectively.
Noise Comfort
Road noise stems from the interaction between air particles and the tire’s tread walls.
As air enters the tire, especially through its shoulders area, it circulates and impacts the tread, resulting in the main source of tread noise.
And so it can be seen why the Scorpion Verde AS is so great here, only generating minimal impact noise and barely noticeable tread vibration.
This is because of two things, one the tire has pretty compact shoulders. As discussed in its construction (section), on one side of its asymmetric tread, the shoulders have ridges in between, while the other has continuous running rib adjacent to the lugs.
Meaning on both sides, the lateral grooves are blocked, resisting air entry in the first place.
Additionally, the tire incorporates a layer of sound-absorbing foam on the inner liner (though this is available on limited sizes). So this further reduces cabin noise and enhances the overall quietness of the ride.
For Your Info: This tire could have easily claimed the title of the quietest tire if not for the presence of varied tones on most surfaces and a subtle, persistent growl. However, this growl is mainly noticeable at slower speeds and does not significantly detract from its impressive noise comfort.
Currently the quietest tire in the category is Pirelli Cinturato SF2 (review).
Winter Performance
Now in terms of winter performance, the tire isn’t able to meet you’re expectations. And since the Pirelli here lacks the label of 3PMSF (Three-Peak Mountain Snowflake) winter certification, I didn’t expect too much to begin with.
So why is the tire lacking here?
Well, one significant drawback is the absence of biting edges and distinct snow-specific features found on its competitors. This compromises its grip on icy and snowy surfaces, making it a less dependable option, relatively.
Moreover, the Scorpion Verde All Season’s densely packed longitudinal lugs, coupled with the lack of notches in the shoulder area, contribute to diminished lateral traction, limiting overall stability and control.
But yes, it does okay in terms of directional grip, where the in-groove notches on the central ribs allow for decent snow-to-snow contact, which can accumulate and retain snow particles.
This type of contact generates greater friction as snowflakes naturally adhere to each other (instead of rubber).
As a result, the tire exhibits slightly better braking and acceleration performance in snowy conditions, although it still falls short, especially when compared to other tires in it’s grand touring category.
Road Vibrations Comfort
Now when it comes to impact comfort the Pirelli Scorpion AS providing a slightly firmer ride, needs to be improved.
This is because the tire’s rubber compound, characterized by low silica density, lacks the necessary elasticity to effectively absorb road imperfections.
But yes, thanks to its dedicated comfort layer positioned above the nylon cap plies, the tire doesn’t compromise on comfort a lot.
I mean, while the initial impact when encountering bumps might feel slightly sharp, the tire swiftly dampens it as soon as it occurs.
This ensures that any discomfort caused by road imperfections is short-lived, meaning there aren’t any prolonged disturbances.
Fuel Economy
Despite being awarded the ECOImpact certification, the overall fuel economy of the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season could still see some improvements.
For Your Info: This certification is typically given to tires with polymers designed to reduce harmful CO2 emissions and compound elements that minimize rolling resistance, thereby enhancing fuel economy.
Now the main problem area for this tire here, is its heavier inner construction, with extra plies, along with the dedicated noise-reduction layer and thicker rubber that extends up to 12/32″.
All of these basically put more weight pressure on the lugs, which then become prone to bending, losing energy in the form of heat.
And so less energy being conserved for the actual rolling of the tire, lowers the overall fuel efficiency scores for Pirelli’s tire here.
What’s The Verdict?
Well, overall, the Pirelli Scorpion Verde All Season tire demonstrates a mixed performance across various parameters.
Its dry straight-line and lateral traction are great, owing to its unique tread design and densely packed shoulder lugs. However, its steering response is less impressive.
Wet performance is a notable weakness too, with limited (or I should say, less effective) wet gripping elements. Though you do get good enough aquaplaning resistance.
Similarly, the winter performance is also not so impressive, which can be guessed, given the tire is missing with tri-peak rating.
Though the tire offers pretty great results when it comes to tread life and noise reduction performance.
And it’s fuel economy, and impact comfort areas are also doing okay.
